This invention pertains to a portable, quickly deployable, and easily re-stowable, accessory hanger, such as a purse hanger, which may be either an independent device, or a structure integrated with that which it is to be used to hang. For convenience in the balance of this invention disclosure, most discussion about the invention herein will be made in reference to a woman's purse as a representative accessory, with the understanding that this discussion should be understood to refer to accessories other than a purse, such as an umbrella, etc., and, of course, to accessories belonging to men as well as to women.
The problems so conveniently and handily solved by the present invention are familiar to all who carry freely exposed accessories that need to be “stored” temporarily, and readily at hand, in locations such as restaurants, coffee shops, etc. The resolution offered by the invention enables quick and easy hanging of an accessory, in what is referred to herein as a cantilever fashion, on and from the edge of any conveniently available external structure, such as a tabletop or a countertop.
In general terms, the hanger of the invention, in its preferred embodiment, takes the form of a compact, generally flat-planar, linear, tri-fold (two fold-axis) device having an elongate, central body, on the opposite ends of which are pivoted (one on each end) inner ends of two, elongate, swing arms that have folded and stowed, and unfolded and deployed (outwardly diverging), conditions relative to the hanger's central body. The hanger has the mentioned flat-planar configuration when the arms are in their respective folded, stowed conditions.
A sliding-motion, accessory-connection traveler structure having a sliding-motion traveler, and which is part of what is referred to herein as a traveler system, includes an outwardly exposed “connecting portion” which is used in all instances to participate in a direct connection to and with an accessory to be served. The traveler is capturedly, or captively, mounted, and carried for reversible, free, longitudinal sliding motion, on one of the arms. The traveler, in its sliding motion behavior, offers a special and unique, load-bearing-adjustment behavior during use of the hanger of the invention, as will be explained in greater detail later herein. In this context, and in somewhat general terms, the traveler has both hanger-deployed and hanger-non-deployed load-bearing dispositions. The traveler shifts (slides) freely between these two dispositions along the arm which carries it during folding and unfolding of that arm. The hanger-deployed disposition exists with this “carrying” arm residing in its unfolded and deployed condition, and with the traveler then located adjacent that arm's outer, free (non-pivoted) end. The hanger-non-deployed disposition exists with the “carrying” arm occupying its folded and stowed condition, and with the traveler then located adjacent the “carrying” arm's pivoted end.
In the hanger structure of the invention, one of the two arms, under user manipulation and control, swings out to an associated, defined angle (angular extension) relative to the body, thereafter to rest by gravity (as placed by a user during use of the hanger) in a cantilever fashion on the top surface adjacent an edge of an external support structure, such as those just mentioned above. The other arm, also under user manipulation and control, swings out to another, associated, defined angle (another angular extension) relative to the body, and carries with it appropriate connecting structure for (a) pre-established (or subsequently establishable) releasable attachment, or (b) in certain instances, permanent (as in integrated) attachment, to the accessory which is to be served and “hung”.
A hung accessory will typically hang immediately below the just-mentioned “other arm”, and beneath, and slightly inwardly of, the perimeter of the edge of a user-selected, external supporting structure.
Specially constructed releasable detent structure (detent releasable latching structure), and inter-arm, confronting catch structure, normally cooperate to keep both swing arms releasably stabilized (i.e., restrained) in their folded and stowed conditions when the hanger is not in use holding an accessory.
These and various other novel and useful features and advantages of the hanger of the invention will become more fully apparent as the descriptions presented below of preferred and best-mode embodiments of it are described in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.